


Until it Joins Some Larger Way

by ArtemisRae



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Max-centric, ONE OF US ONE OF US, The Gangs All Here, Underage Drinking, aka dustins bard tries to seduce his way through the monster manual, and horrible disgusting jokes, but enough background shipping, dnd fic, dustins summer of seduction, its all there, max cannot believe shes friends with these losers, teenagers are horrible, theyre teeangers playing dnd, warnings for crude language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-27 00:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13869396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtemisRae/pseuds/ArtemisRae
Summary: The Road goes ever on and onDown from the door where it began.Now far ahead the Road has gone,And I must follow, if I can,Pursuing it with eager feet,Until it joins some larger wayWhere many paths and errands meet.And whither then? I cannot say.- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the RingMax is folded into the party via dungeons and dragons but she develops a reputation for being unafraid to sacrifice her characters to get what she wants. Three times Max tries to kill off her character, and one that finishes the journey.





	Until it Joins Some Larger Way

**Author's Note:**

> Just in case you didn't notice my tag vomit, WARNINGS FOR disgusting crude language because they are teenagers playing dnd.
> 
> Thanks to my BFF juxtaposie, who not only is familiar with dnd (and thus was able to coach me when I wasn't sure wtf I was doing) but also provided me with fodder regarding the disgusting crude jokes. At least one of the situations in this fic is modified based off of one of her stories of playing with her friends.

“He can’t do that, why are you letting him do that?” Mike protested, slapping a palm on the table. The figurines scattered across the board jumped.

“Do you say that in character?” Dustin asked cooly, with no hint of bother whatsoever. The corners of his lips were quirked upwards, not quite a smile, and not quite smug, but definitely in the ballpark of both. Max noticed as the others at the table collectively sighed, but did not attempt to intervene.

“Don’t be an ass Dustin,” Mike insisted. “He shouldn’t be rolling for strength, you can’t just-”

“I’m sorry, are you saying that in character or not?” Mike glowered at him, and Dustin rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t matter, because you are not the dungeon master right now. I am the dungeon master, so he’s rolling what I tell him to, whether or not you think it’s correct.”

“You’re just doing this because last time we played I made you roll for dexterity instead of charisma when that halfling stabbed you!” Mike accused, and Max was relieved to see that Mike’s attitude was grating the others as well. Will had laid his forehead against the table, and Lucas was glaring at Mike. 

This was what passed for fun with these guys? For months they had been talking up Dungeons and Dragons, teaching her and El the rules, helping them make characters, and planning their first dungeon crawl. They’d made it sound like fun, although the most fun Max’d had so far had been bonding with El over learning the rules. 

Max was maybe the only one who thought it was a little cruel to take El, a girl who was still learning the rules of the real world, and teach her a whole new magical one, but El was eager to learn. She wanted to please Mike and the boys, and sometimes seemed a little less surprised at some of the twists and turns in gameplay than Max did.

(It was one of those things that made her feel kind of sick - knowing the truth about El Hopper and how she’d been raised as some kind of insane lab experiment. The weight of that knowledge made the times that El didn’t ask for help just because it didn’t occur to her break Max’s heart. Conversely, on the rare occasion El was actually able to say she needed something, it made Max want to _go get it right now_ , which was an impulse that didn’t even extend to Lucas.)

The first part of the evening had been more fun. Mrs. Wheeler had ordered them pizza, and Holly had come downstairs and painted hers and El’s nails while the boys set up, bickering amongst each other about seating arrangements. Max liked the Wheeler house - Mike often spoke of his parents with contempt, but compared to her house with her angry stepfather and deferential mother and the ghost of Billy, the Wheeler’s was something like a paradise. Mike had the whole basement dedicated to himself and his friends, and only sometimes had to share with Holly. To Max that was an unspeakable luxury. 

Then they had started the dungeon crawl. El, at Mike’s insistence, was playing as a mage, and his patience was infinite as she considered everything she said, every spell she cast. While Mike had accepted Max as a member of the party and they could laugh together and do homework together and even eat lunch alone together, she wasn’t willing to test his patience while she stumbled her way through a role playing game. Her first character was a barbarian, using the logic that it couldn’t that difficult to just hit enemies as hard as possible.

She still had her heart set on _zoomer_ , but she didn’t know the game well enough yet to build the character. Someday though, she was going to make that character, and Michael Wheeler was going to like it.

That day was still a ways away, judging by the fit he was currently throwing.

“Who even made you DM anyway?” Mike asked, throwing up his hands.

Dustin fixed him with a hard stare and replied, disbelieving, “You did, remember? You came to me on Wednesday and said, _Oh Dustin, I’m way too busy making out with El, I won’t be ready for Saturday, can you please cover for me, I’ll owe you!_ ” He completed the impression by clasping both hands together under his chin and batting his eyelashes at Mike.

“That is not what happened!” Mike protested.

Dustin gestured to El. “You were there. Isn’t that what happened?”

El considered and shrugged, clearly reluctant to disagree with Mike. “Those weren’t the exact words.”

“But that was the gist of it, wasn’t it El?” Lucas asked eagerly, leaning forward in his chair to shout over Mike’s “ _Oh my god_.”

“Do you say that in character, Lucas?” Dustin prompted.

“Gist?” El asked. She looked down at her character sheet nervously. “Is that a spell?”

“Do you say that in character, El?” El shot Dustin a confused look and shook her head.

“My character is not named El,” she said, pointing at the board.

Max huffed impatiently. They’d been playing for six hours at this point - and they knew she had a curfew at 10, because she’d made an out-of-character announcement just a half hour ago that they needed to wrap it up so she could get home on time. Ever since Billy had run away back to California last summer her stepdad had been extra strict about the curfew - always needed to know where she was, when she’d be home, always suspecting her of planning to run away herself. 

“Stop talking about making out! For the last time, _we were doing English homework_!” Mike was covering his face with his hands, but Max could see that he was blushing.

“Do you say that in character?”

“You’re in different English classes,” Will pointed out.

“Do you say _that_ in character Will?” Dustin asked over Mike’s betrayed “ _Will_!”

Lucas was cracking up, one large hand covering his mouth, and Max felt her irritation ebb a little bit. He was often so serious, and not because it came easily to him - Max felt like it cost him something, to be the practical one in this group of nerds. She wondered if the others knew, or if they had realized that he did it so they didn’t have to. It was a pleasure to watch him laugh, though she liked being responsible for it more. 

“All I’m saying.” Will had his shoulders hitched up by his ears, hands turned up in an innocent but impeccable imitation of his mother, “Is that I have the same English class as her. I could have tutored her.”

“You’re getting a C in English!” Mike positively roared.

“Then I could have used the help with my homework,” Will pointed out. Mike groaned, buried his face in his hands again.

“We didn’t even finish the assignment,” El said reasonably, in what Max suspected was meant to be some sort of defense, but Lucas and Dustin both started hooting and Mike just shook his head.

Despite the fact that she was annoyed - and growing more concerned as precious minutes went by and she would need to leave - a smile twitched across Max’s face. It was fun to needle Wheeler, and whenever Will joined in it was especially fun. Maybe it was because Will was second only to El when it came to being granted Mike Wheeler’s patience - Mike had no problems telling Lucas and Dustin to shut up, and sometimes just the sight of Max’s face seemed to piss him off, but if it was Will Mike at least tried to restrain himself.

And underneath that, there was the smallest sense of smugness - because _she_ knew what had actually happened when Mike and El had supposedly been doing homework. 

Despite their inauspicious beginnings, it hadn’t taken long for El to decide she liked Max - and with that simple friendship came El Hopper’s unwavering trust as well. They’d had a talk, after the Snowball but before she’d been able to come to school, about how they had to stick together - not just for the good of the party the way Dustin kept insisting, but for their own sanity too. Max trusted the Party, believed they had only good intentions, but that didn’t change the fact they were still a bunch of boys, and sometimes a girl just needed another girl to talk to.

It had stung, being rejected at first. But Max had decided the night that they’d met that El needed a girl friend more than anything, and she had been determined to listen to her instincts even with her hurt feelings telling her to run, and run far. 

Because she had listened to Lucas tell the story of this superhero who had saved them from the demogorgon, and Dustin had crowed about her flipping a van, and Mike spoke of El like she was a prophet and he was her disciple, but what had made the biggest impression hadn’t been the way El had saved them all from a pack of demodogs - it had been the way El had fallen out of the Blazer when Hopper had returned with her to the Byers’.

Mike had run out into the driveway and yanked open the door before the truck had even pulled to a complete stop, and he and Hopper had both been fussing, yelling, but Max hadn’t even heard the noise because she’d been so focused on the dark, limp form that had been their hero. The difference between the girl who’d strolled casually into the living room that evening and the girl who couldn’t even walk into the house later that night was striking. 

El had looked so small in Hopper’s arms when he’d carried her in, made her comfortable, and once the blood and makeup had been washed from her face, she’d looked so much younger than the girl who’d thrown a demodog through the window using only her brain.

The guys had seen a superhero, compared her to a Jedi, to the X-Men, but Max had seen a sick, sleeping girl, and despite the initial cold shoulder had made a vow - _she would befriend this girl_.

Not to mention, Max couldn’t remember the last time she actually wanted to be someone’s friend. Lucas and Dustin had kind of forced themselves on her, and that hadn’t been her first experience with so called stalkers - she’d had friends when she was young, in California, before her parents divorce and her stepdad, but after the wedding her new dad - “ _no call me Dad, we’re family now”_ \- had insisted she transfer schools, further away from her actual father, away from her friends, and it had turned out that the Hargroves had a reputation at her new school. 

The year before they’d moved to Hawkins had been long and miserable. She’d missed her friends, she’d missed her real dad, and nothing good ever came from the couple people who had actually shown interest in her. Most of the kids avoided her, having either run into Billy or heard enough stories to know that they didn’t want to.

It made it ten times more special when she and El had sat at one of the picnic tables outside the cafeteria that Friday, enjoying the crisp fall sunshine before winter fell upon them. They’d been well out of ear shot from the boys, and El had told her in unflinching detail about what had started out with Mike helping her with English homework and had ended up with them working on something that was decidedly not on the syllabus.

Max had been blushing at El’s frank manner, but El hadn’t been embarrassed. She’d even shown Max the hickey that was currently hidden by the carefully tied pigtail behind El’s ear.

"Can we please keep going?" Max tried to ask, but it was hard to shout over Lucas, Dustin, and Mike, who were now arguing loudly - at least, Mike was trying to argue with them, and Dustin and Lucas were laughing at him.

She glanced at her watch uneasily. Ten minutes until she _had_ to leave.

Biting her lip, she looked at the board, and the little figurine that stood for her barbarian. It was a pretty boring character, truthfully - he talked in grunts and short sentences, mostly because Max wasn't confident enough to narrate her actions the way the boys could. The way they played was almost cinematic, giving her a complete mental picture of the landscape, the character's expressions, their moods, their clothing.

It wasn't that Max was lacking in imagination, but the storytelling didn't come naturally to her the way it seemed to come to them. Playing the barbarian had seemed like an easy way to get a handle on the game - _when in doubt, hit 'em as hard as possible_.

She didn't really like the character at all. In hindsight it had been a mistake to design him after her brute of a stepfather had expressed concern over her playing Dungeons and Dragons - some news report about satanic cults. In revenge she had designed the nastiest asshole of a barbarian that the party would allow. At the time it had made her feel warm, knowing that he'd hate being represented by that little troll figurine in a loincloth.

Nine minutes.

A thought occurred to her. She bit her lip. Considered her options.

She was sick of MacNigel Bitter Axe. It had seemed funny at first, but she was sick of being beholden to Neil Hargrove in any form.

Slapping the table with open palms, she shouted, "Hey! Assholes!"

El looked at her. Max did it again. "Dustin! Hey Dickface!"

That finally got Dustin's attention, and when he looked up at her Lucas and Will did too. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw El mouthing the word _dickface_ to herself, filing it away for future use.

"It's my turn! So I'm going to grab that orc's spear right out of his hand.” She mimed the action as she announced it. "And shove it into my chest."

Silence.

Finally Dustin said, "You are saying that in character, right Max?"

Max rolled her eyes. "I _wish_ I had a spear right now, but yes, I'm saying that in character."

Will protested with a gentle, "Max!"

Lucas hissed, "What are you even doing!"

Dustin simply said, "Okay, roll."

She looked down again. Eight minutes.

With a shake of her hand, the dice went flying across the board. "Ten."

"Shit." Dustin mumbled, looking down and back up again. "What's your armor?"

Max didn't even look down at her sheet. She was almost frantic to get out of that basement. "I took it off,” she declared. "I'm naked on the battlefield."

El's eyebrows shot up, Will winced, but Max was most interested in Lucas's reaction. The change that went over his face would have been hilarious in any other context. He bit his lip and looked down, carefully avoiding eye contact.

Mike's mouth dropped open. "You can't take your armor off!"

"Do you say that in character, Boone Brightsheild?" Dustin asked calmly, raising an eyebrow at Mike.

"You _know_ I’m not!" Mike snapped. "She should have done it before she rolled, now she gets to use the armor to modify her defense!"

"It doesn't matter." Dustin shrugged. "She's rolling for offense."

"She's not rolling for offense!" Mike's face had already been red, but now the blush was crawling down his neck. "She is rolling for defense!"

Dustin looked affronted. He pointed at the board. "She is attacking herself! She is rolling for offense!"

"She's attacking herself, she's rolling to defend herself!"

"Mike that doesn't even - no. She rolled for offense, and we're looking to see if the attack was successful!"

"That's not right! If they're going to learn the game they have to learn how to play correctly!" Mike gestured to her and El.

Any remaining ounce of patience Max had been feeling evaporated. She stood up. "Excuse me! Am I dead yet?"

Dustin waved a hand. "Yes, MacNigel collapses on the field of battle, on his front so the spear sinks all the way through until it's poking through his back. The orc immediately loses interest and wanders away, and since it’s the heat of battle we're going to have to bury you next session."

"Fine." She grabbed her jacket and her skateboard, and started towards the basement steps. Mike and Dustin had resumed arguing over the roll. El gave her a crooked smile and a small wave. Lucas raised his eyebrows and lifted his hand to his ear, mouthing _call me_.

As she clattered up the steps, she heard Dustin say, "Mike, I'm the DM! I'm the one who gets to decide if she's dead or not! Will, it's your action!"

Will's sweet voice floated up the steps behind her. "Can I loot the corpse?"

Mike swore.

"Do you say that in character Boone?"

***

It was 1:48 in the morning, and Max Mayfield was currently in a standoff with Mike Wheeler.

Of course, she hadn't realized it was a standoff at first. At first, she had thought she was dealing with a series of lucky (or unlucky, in her mind) rolls. 

"There's a table in front of you with two keys. One is large, golden, with a ruby in the handle. The other is a small and silver." Mike looked up. "Lucas? Your action."

They were sitting next to each other, holding hands, but Lucas leaned forward, bracing the elbow of his free hand on the table, and bit his thumbnail. "That library had a locked door with a ruby in the handle," He said. "I pick up the golden key."

"Everybody roll for initiative," Mike announced immediately, almost gleeful, and Dustin and Will both started shouting. Across from Max, El started as if she'd been woken up - which she might have done. It was late, and it wasn’t unusual for her to zone out.

"Lucas you didn't even check for traps! How could you not check for traps!" Dustin was shouting, overtop Will's cry of, "Always check, _always always always_!"

"I know!" Lucas moaned into his hands. He'd dropped her hand so he could slump in his chair, hands covering his face. "I can't believe I did that."

"It's two in the morning!" Max protested, simultaneously sympathetic and irritated. She was ready to wrap things up, and wasn't particularly enthused about engaging in some kind of battle. "You're too tired to make decisions."

Lucas waved a hand impatiently, brushing off her very reasonable concern about the lateness of the hour. "It's fine, it was just a stupid mistake."

Max's heart sank. He was not picking up her so subtle hints that it was too late to still be playing, and that maybe they should wrap things up, and that Max was tired, and _oh, also_ they'd been playing for almost ten hours straight by now.

That was a lot for a simple boy brain to pick up, but Max had given Lucas credit. He'd always been good at reading her, even at times when she hadn't been sure herself what it was that she needed.

She had known from stories that the boys could play through an entire evening, but it was the first time she'd played with them past midnight - because El wouldn’t tell them she was tired, or needed to stop, they’d usually play until she dozed off right at the table and Mike would quickly find a way to leave everyone in a good place. 

(Except for that one time when they had ended up burning everything to the ground. Mike had almost cried. It had been a great night.)

But El hadn’t fallen asleep - in fact, it wasn’t until the last hour that she had even started to nod off. And there was no curfew to worry about either. Neil thought she was having a girly sleepover with El at the Hoppers’. El’s dad, despite the fact that Max had never once said anything to the man about her home life, knew he was their cover story and didn’t seem to have any issue with that - though Max and El also went out of their way to make sure it was never his problem.

El knew how bad it was at home. She knew about Neil reporting Billy’s car stolen, and trying to get it repossessed, and the screaming fights over the phone. Will knew too. When El had pulled him into the whispered conversation one study hall, Max had learned as well - about Will’s dad, about Jonathan making him mixtapes and helping him build Castle Byers, about the electricity being shut off despite the liquor bottles stacked in the bin behind the house.

It wasn’t comforting, exactly, but it was strange to realize that every fight followed the same script that she and Will both could recite like the lyrics of their favorite song. Two dads, two assholes, one fight.

She couldn’t prove that El and Will had told their respective parents about what Max had shared with them, but Will’s mom had somehow become even warmer - which was something that Max didn’t know was possible - and sleepovers that Max had previously been barred from (because she was friends with _boys_ ) became weekend staples as not even Neil Hargrove could argue with Max hanging out at the home of Hawkins’ chief of police (which is where he thought they were, even when they were at the Wheelers).

“The entire room shudders. You all struggle to stay on your feet. You hear a weird grinding noise and realize that the ceiling to this tiny room is slowly lowering upon you - and that the door has vanished.” Mike tapped a pen against the table, his eyes flicking to all of their faces.

Max sighed and glanced down at her character sheet. What good was her sorcerer against a stone ceiling?

She liked her sorcerer. Mike hadn’t been happy - said they already had Will and El, why would they need another magic character? But she had maxed out on strength - which had also annoyed Mike, but Max could sneeze too loudly and that would upset Mike - and had thus avoided stepping on the toes of Will the Wise and El’s mage.

Malenor the Shadowstriker was better than the barbarian. For one thing, he talked in complete sentences. And Max liked learning more about the game’s mechanics - she and El had skipped their last study hall on Friday in favor of sitting outside, pouring over one of Dustin’s borrowed manuals. There was still so much to learn - and so many more ways she could annoy Mike Wheeler.

At the moment though, she was willing to sacrifice Malenor if it meant she could lay down and go to bed. 

In fact, she had already tried to sacrifice Malenor twice in the last hour, only to have her hopes of reaching her sleeping bag dashed as twice she had rolled poorly, and Mike had happily narrated how very close their sorcerer had come to death only to escape at the last minute.

Max scrubbed her forehead and yawned widely. As the she came out of her fog, she realized there was an edge to Mike’s voice:

“No Dustin, you can’t roll for charisma. It’s a stone ceiling. You can’t seduce it into not crushing you!”

“I mean, has anyone ever tried talking to it? Seeing what it wants? What is the ceiling’s motivation?” Dustin asked, distressingly sincere.

Mike rolled his eyes. “You need a girlfriend. And I mean you, not Bewegt Woodward.”

“Why would you say that?” Dustin sounded wounded.

“Because every battle for our last three campaigns has started with you trying to seduce the nearest enemy,” Will pointed out, and despite herself, Max felt a smile twitch. She wasn’t the only one who had succeeded in being annoying via Dungeons and Dragons.

“Hey that’s not fair,” Lucas protested. “Without our pervy bard, that lady orc would still be a naive warrior. Dustin made her a woman.”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Dustin flashed a smile at the memory. “Her name was Daisy, she loved puppies, and without her we would have never escaped that labyrinth!”

“She loved to _eat_ puppies,” Will said quietly, eyebrows raised at the memory.

“Details.” Dustin waved a hand dismissively. 

"Max?" Mike was looking at her.

She rubbed her eyes. "I lay down."

"You what?" That was Lucas. Mike glared at her, his jaw set.

"Fine,” he said finally, resigned. “Your sorcerer has decided that now is a good time for a nap, and has pulled his hood up and laid down on the floor."

"I accept my fate with open arms,” Max said sweeping her hands out, palms up. All she wanted was to dive into her sleeping bag and close her eyes. Her limbs were stiff from sitting for so long. While she loved these campaigns - and she did, she really did - that didn't change the fact that she was exhausted. 

Though there was something special about sitting around the table with this party that had adopted her. She thought it came from fact that they imagined these amazing adventures together - and lived with the knowledge that if any of this scary stuff was real they would still be okay.

(Because they had been okay, _they had been_ , sure there were still scars, but El wasn't a piece of equipment in a lab, and Will wasn't in the Upside-Down, and the rest of them hadn't been devoured by demodogs; they were sitting around this table laughing at the fact that Dustin was trying to seduce his way through the Monster Manual.)

Mike sighed. "Will? Your action? Keep in mind your sorcerer is sleeping on the floor."

It took a combination of Will and El's magic to slow the ceiling and reveal the door that had been hidden to them. By the time the party was ducking out of the room, the ceiling had broken Will’s staff and was brushing the tops of their heads.

“Max?” Mike asked. Max made a loud snoring noise in response. Mike rolled his eyes. “Lucas? Your action, since your sorcerer is still sleeping on the floor?”

Lucas looked at her uneasily out of the corner of his eye. She could see in his eyes what he was going to do, and gave him her best death glare to deter him. “I pick up Malenor and fireman carry him out of the room with me.”

Her death glare had never worked on him anyway.

“Roll for strength,” Mike instructed, and smiled broadly when Lucas rolled a 12, more than what was needed to carry both himself and Max’s sorcerer safely from the booby trapped room.

Max swore. Lucas looked at her, eyebrows furrowed. 

“I am _not_ sharing my sleeping bag with you tonight,” she hissed.

His mouth dropped open. “I just _saved_ you!”

Her glare was interrupted with another wide yawn. Lucas’s confused face cracked into a grin. Sure, _now_ he understood what she’d been trying to do.

“Sorry,” he said, “I like Malenor too much.”

He liked _her_ too much. Lucas didn’t look after her the same way Mike did El - she’d never tolerate that, though El seemed to flourish under Mike’s attention - but he was good at knowing what she needed without her feeling smothered.

Stupid, little things - giving her parts of his lunch, keeping a spare sweatshirt in his locker, waiting for her when his baseball practice finished up before her softball practice. All things that would have made her feel itchy and smothered if it had been anyone else but Lucas. His energy was sturdy and calming, and he was easily the most reliable person in her life, and sometimes she worried about how much she liked him and wanted to let him pick her up when she was ready to lay down. 

So maybe she wasn’t that mad. But she was still tired though.

“You find yourselves crowded into the narrowed, twisty staircase of a tower. From a nearby window you can tell that you’re up near the top. At the horizon you can see a plume of smoke rising into the air.”

Max rolled her eyes. This didn’t sound like Mike was winding things down.

"We have to get back to the library," Dustin said.

"Can I throw myself out the window?" Max asked.

The response was instantaneous - and much bigger than she'd anticipated. Lucas threw his hands up in the air, Dustin shouted some unintelligible noise of the _oh come on!_ variety, and El immediately slapped her hands on the table and cried, "Me too, I can save her!"

Mike, however, jumped up from his seat, and in a movement so smooth she would never have guessed gangly Mike Wheeler capable of doing so, grabbed her by the elbow, pulled her out of her seat, and gritted out, "Can I talk to you please?"

It wasn't much of a question, considering that he had physically dragged her out of the basement door into the backyard. It was late May but chilly outside. Max snatched her elbow out of Mike's grip and crossed her arms. The cold from the concrete step soaked through the socks she was wearing.

It was enough to wake her up a little. "At least you said _please_ ,” she sniped.

"What is going on in there?" Mike demanded. His hands were clenched at his sides. "Why are you doing this?"

Before she could answer he kept going, "Your curfew isn't the issue, so what is it? Do you hate the story? Did I offend you? I thought that you -"

"Hey!" she finally interrupted his tirade, poking a finger into his chest. "Calm down. Take a breath. Stop assuming everything is about you."

There were shadows under his eyes, and Max momentarily felt bad. Too often she thought Mike was a drama queen, and it was too easy to get under his skin, but that didn't change the fact that he loved his friends and a lot of work went into planning these campaigns.

It was hard not to feel a little guilty as she shrugged and looked down at their feet. Mike was barefoot, and he was flexing his toes against the concrete. "I'm tired,” she admitted. "I want to go to bed."

Any charitable thoughts she'd had about Mike immediately fled as he made his stupid pouting _fight me_ face. "You could have just asked! I would have found something to do with your character!"

"Everyone else was having fun!" Max argued. "I don't know how you all sit there for ten hours, but I didn't want to ruin it if you were going for a world record or something."

"You're going to ruin it if you die tonight!" Mike hissed.

She stared at him. "You are talking about my character, right?" she asked, eyes squinting suspiciously.

Mike's hands, which had relaxed, clenched again, and it took Max a moment to realize it was because Mike was trying not to smile. "Goddamnit, Max. Right now I'm not sure."

She snorted. Her feet were going numb. "What's going on then? Why can't I just die and go to bed?"

Mike looked at the door, then took her elbow and turned her so they were still standing on the step - the ground was damp, and neither one of them wanted to get their feet wet - but with his back to the door. "You have a metamagic rod, I don’t want to lose it,” he hissed.

"So?" she hissed right back at him. "Let me die. Will can just loot my corpse like always. Let him have it."

"No!" Mike actually stamped his foot in frustration. He looked nervously over his shoulder. "I need you for the plot. Will can’t use it with what I have planned."

“Seriously?” She wanted to be annoyed. She really did. It was late and she’d been cooped up with the boys in that basement all night and she deserved to go to bed.

But she couldn’t be annoyed. Because the fact that he was relying on her character for an upcoming battle meant that he’d been thinking about her when he had planned the campaign. He was trying to fold her even more into the party, trying to give her a chance to shine in their game.

It was hard, fighting to be truly included in a group like theirs - the boys had history, going back as far as kindergarten, and there were too many stories about the awesome heroic feats of their characters, campaigns where they’d learned real life lessons, jokes about teachers Max had never met or references to places she’d never been.

She felt the smile growing across her face as she took in the true meaning of Mike’s gesture. Mike suddenly wouldn’t make eye contact with her. She licked her lips. “Allright Wheeler. You get a half hour to get us to a safe place so I can go to bed.”

Mike immediately balked. “I need at least an hour!”

“Twenty minutes!” Max shot back.

“That’s _less_!” Mike protested.

“Twenty minutes or Malenor splatters from a hundred stories up.” Max held firm. 

“El will cry if you kill Malenor.” That did hold some sway. There were a lot of things Max could tolerate, but tears from El wasn’t one of them. Mike sighed. “Fine, a half hour.”

They stared at each other. “Deal,” Max finally caved.

Mike exhaled hard. “Thank you.”

He turned around and yanked open the back door, and Max saw why he’d turned them away from the door. All of their friends dove away, trying to pretend like they hadn’t been pressed up against the door listening.

Mike crossed his arms and glared at all of them. “What did you hear?”

“Nothing!” they all protested in a single voice. Lucas made eye contact with Max and winked. She couldn’t help the grin she flashed back at him.

Mike squared his shoulders, and Max could tell her was shoring up for a fight - and then abruptly he stopped, laughed, rubbed his eyes, and said, “Okay, fine. You didn’t hear anything. Let’s wrap this up for tonight. Max is going to redo her action.”

“You never let me redo any of my actions!” Dustin immediately protested as they settled back around the table again. 

“I’m sorry Dustin,” Mike’s voice was firm but he truly did sound regretful. “But you can’t unfuck that hag.”

***

The blueberry schnapps, in hindsight, was probably what pushed them over the edge.

Nobody really liked them, but beggars couldn't be choosers when it came to the liquor that was available to them as underage teenagers. It was no wonder that the bottle had been shoved into the very back of the Wheeler's liquor cabinet. It had been suspicious judging by the layer of dust that had settled over it, but Mike had told them that if his parents ever noticed it was gone he could always blame Nancy.

Or, depending on how long it took them to notice, Holly.

The syrupy navy liquid was sickeningly sweet, but the bottle was nearly full, and that was good enough for the party's purposes. Mike had hidden it in the blanket fort the night before, during that precious twenty minute window when his mother had to pick up Holly from gymnastics and his father hadn't gotten home from work yet.

It had come out late in the evening, after they had obliterated the pizzas that had been delivered in the middle of a vicious fight against a bulette, and had served as an amenable companion, being passed around the table throughout the night.

El and Will had each taken no more than a few sips - Will in general didn't like alcohol, though he never protested when drinking came up amongst their group, and El didn't like the taste. Max could agree - it wasn't that the schnapps tasted like alcohol, exactly, but there was something to it, some weird twinge to the taste that made it clear that it wasn't just ordinary juice.

Mike was drinking more than El and Will, but less than the others - he was the DM, and had to keep it together enough to keep the story moving. It wasn't a particularly complex dungeon crawl, a simple search and rescue mission, but in typical Party fashion they had all shown up to the Wheeler's at two in the afternoon, and Lucas' watch had just beeped to mark four in the morning.

Typically, Max would have given up and gone to bed, but there was something magical happening in the room; a weird synergy that meant they were all working effortlessly as a team. She could see from the light in Dustin's eyes, the excitement on Lucas' face - it was like she could predict every spell El was going to cast before she said it, knew what Will was going to do before he did it. Even Mike's narration was more dramatic than usual - though that could be the alcohol - as he seemed to understand how completely he had their attention.

She didn't want to break the spell. She wasn't ready to leave this story, leave this group, leave her character - Estel Westhaven, the first one she'd ever actually _liked_. Her character, who was currently limping after a run in with a basilisk while scouting, had still successfully reported back to the party.

“You make your camp for the night to let your wounded ranger rest, but before your cleric can even unpack you hear a crashing sound in the distance,” Mike’s voice was pitched low. They were all leaning close, listening carefully. El was holding her breath. “You all scramble to hide as a hunting party made up of orcs approaches.”

“Shit. Orcs,” Will whispered.

Max snagged the bottle of schnapps from Dustin and took a sip. Licking her lips, she pointed the bottle back at him. “Don’t try to fuck them,” she warned.

Dustin rolled his eyes. “Will you get over that? It's been months since I tried. I stopped doing that when you said you wouldn’t play anymore.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t want to hear you narrate a gremlin gangbang,” Max snapped. Dustin’s Summer of Seduction lived in infamy in the Party’s Hall of Records. What had started out as lighthearted fun to make them laugh had escalated as Mike had seen Dustin’s attempts as a personal challenge, and had designed campaigns specifically to land his bard in the most ridiculous situations possible.

“It was a critical failure,” Dustin shot back. “It was only supposed to be the _one_ gremlin.”

The night Max had drawn the line Dustin had rolled a two to seduce a gremlin. The entire party had held their collective breath, watching Mike to see what he'd say. Mike had looked down at his notes for a long time before finally saying, "You're surrounded by no less than fifteen of them, and they're all looking at you like you're the tastiest hunk of meat they've ever seen." He'd leaned back, crossed his arms, and declared, "Fuck or die, Dustin."

The rest of the party had been forced to leave their bard behind, and when he was in the right mood Dustin still whined about their unwillingness to rescue him.

He hadn't died though, Max had to give him credit.

"They come upon your fresh campsite and immediately fan out, looking for an easy kill,” Mike announced, bringing Max back to the present. "Everyone roll for stealth."

Max looked at the little figurine on the board, and then down at her sheet. She wasn't nervous. She already knew, instinctively, that she would be okay. Estel was a ranger, and would have no problem getting out of this. She looked up, made eye contact with Lucas, and didn't bother trying to stifle the grin that involuntarily popped up on her face.

Estel had been his idea, though if anyone ever asked Max would never admit it - not out of pride, but because she wasn’t ready to share such a cherished memory. They’d been wrapped up together in a blanket to ward off the fall chill, watching the sunset at the quarry from the backseat of his Cavalier.

They’d gotten take out from the diner, and Max was still working on her milkshake when Lucas had seen the manual (and the notes that she’d scribbled) in her backpack.

“Why do you have this?” he’d asked flipping through the book that Dustin had lent her months ago.

She’d shrugged, offered him the rest of the milkshake. “Don’t want to be a sorcerer again. I’ll leave the magic to Will and El. I don’t think Mike liked it anyway. I think he thought I was stepping on El’s toes.”

Lucas had rolled his eyes. “I guarantee you that El didn’t think that. And Mike was probably looking for a reason to be annoyed. He knows as well as anyone that they’re different characters.”

“It didn’t feel right.” Max had reached out, thumbing through the book thoughtfully. Mike had declared it all those years ago when they’d met: he was a paladin, Will a wizard, Lucas a ranger, Dustin a bard, El a mage. All characters that seemed to fit them effortlessly, and where did that leave her? It seemed like she was always struggling to make her place.

Though she didn’t often feel that way within the party anymore, it was true she hadn’t found something that felt as right and natural as their roles seemed for the others. In the meantime, she was enjoying learning the game.

Although it had been hard to imagine anything feeling as right and natural as she felt with Lucas’ arm around her waist, back braced against his chest. He rested his chin on her shoulder. “You really want to annoy Mike?” he’d asked, and his eyes had been glittering in a way that had her heart racing.

A ranger, Estel Westhaven. A partner to Lucas’ Halbarad, the first time she’d bothered to make her character a girl - the first time she’d actually tried to play a character instead of just trying to keep up with the boys.

Mike’s face had been hilarious. It had been incredibly gratifying - 

But not as gratifying as watching his face as each of them passed the stealth check, one by one.

Then - disaster.

Lucas rolled a two, and Mike’s face lit up as they all sat back in their chairs and groaned and swore.

“The rest of the party escapes, but Halbarad falls behind, setting off a tripwire and alerting the hunting party to his presence. Immediately the air fills with the sounds of horns as they call to one another in order to hunt you down,” Mike reached out and pushed the figurine closer to Lucas’s ranger.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Dustin chanted, hunching over and pulling his hoodie up to cover his face. El and Will made eye contact, faces apprehensive, as Lucas and Mike began rolling to signal combat. Max reached out and rested her hand on Lucas’s knee, squeezing as he botched initiative and immediately took damage.

"Damnit," he swore, reaching over and pulling the bottle from Max's grip. He winced as he took a drink, and when he licked his lips Max was amused to notice that his tongue had a purplish hue.

The bottle passed to Mike while they each took their turns - El and Will both managed to cast spells while staying hidden, Dustin was able to distract some of them, and Max took the head off of three hunters in one clean hit. She was feeling pretty good when Lucas rolled again -

And all the energy was sucked out of the room when he rolled another two.

"Son of a bitch,” he mumbled, and then looked at Mike accusingly. Max bit her lip, trying to stifle her smile. Lucas was competitive, and when he didn't perform well he sometimes looked at others like they were cheating. It was simultaneously infuriating (one time they had argued over a simple game of catch) and endearing.

Mike gazed back at him, nonplussed, and took a long drink from the bottle while maintaining eye contact. He put down the bottle, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, shrugged, and then immediately rolled well enough to steamroll past Lucas' defenses and mortally injure the ranger.

Will was leaning against the table, both hands covering his mouth, face reflecting shock and awe. Dustin had picked up a stale pizza crust from earlier in the evening, and was gnawing on it in agitation. El was looking at Mike almost fearfully.

Max kept her hand on Lucas' knee. She wanted to reach out and hold his hand, but they were clenched into fists in front of him. He looked ready to flip the table, and Max could understand why - he'd been playing Halbarad for years at this point. Resurrecting him was going to be a pain in the ass, if it could even be done, because of course Mike would make him jump through every hoop possible.

Her fingers twitched against his knee. It was a no brainer. When her turn came around she set her jaw and declared, "I want to go to Halbarad."

“And do what?” Mike asked. He still had the bottle in one hand, his thumb running idly over the lip.

“Shield him, dumbass. What do you want me to roll for?” She looked down at her stat sheet. Lucas grabbed her wrist, tugged slightly to get her attention.

“What are you doing?” he hissed. “You’re already injured.”

“Trust me,” she muttered back.

Mike rolled his eyes. “Fine. Take it. He’s shielded. Estel is standing between Halbarad and the hunters.”

It was a favor that Max suspected had more to do with how much Mike had been drinking and his occasional impatience with the sometimes insanely complicated rules of battle and less to do with him wanting to do Max or Lucas any kind of favors. Either way, Max was grateful.

"We have to get Halbarad out of here," Max told them, rolling for initiative. She looked up at Will. "Is there anything you can do for healing?" 

He grimaced and looked down at his sheet, then craned his neck to look over at El's. Max rolled well enough to get the first hit in, do a little damage to the one who'd been bearing down on Lucas, and Mike took up the dice for his action.

What happened next was burned permanently into Max's mind - slow motion replays that she could picture crystal clear. Lucas, hand still wrapped around her wrist, saying something about leaving him, _I'm too far gone_ , and Dustin, bouncing in his seat, dark blue hood still pulled up over his curls, gesturing wildly at Will, who had his head close with El's as they watched the board with a focus that they rarely demonstrated in school. Mike, neutral and unimpressed as DM, holding the die above his screen so the whole party could watch his roll.

In the span of a heartbeat Max took a step back from herself, noted each expression, felt a swell of affection for each and every one of them -

And then Mike tipped his hand, and the dice dropped, and silence fell over the room.

It was Dustin who broke the silence, with a simple, heartfelt, "Fuck."

El whimpered and slapped her hands over her eyes. Max looked up and made eye contact with Mike. He looked as stunned as she felt.

"Seriously?" Will demanded, standing up and craning over the table. He looked down at the natural 20 that Mike had just rolled, and then up at Max. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," Max confirmed. Her throat suddenly closed up. Lucas' hand felt searing around her wrist. Her hand felt clammy as she rolled for defense - and came up with five.

"Oh no,” Lucas said softly. El was watching through her fingers as Mike picked up the dice to roll for damage and -

She was crying. Why was she crying? She took Lucas' hand properly. "I'm sorry," Max said immediately, before Mike could even say anything. "I'm sorry, I couldn't leave you -"

"I told you to go!" Lucas said softly, his face was contorted in near anguish. "You were already hurt, you should have taken care of yourself!"

"You would have done the same for me!" Max hissed, and started as she felt the first real tears spill over onto her cheeks. She scrubbed at her eyes with her free hand, mortified, but at the same time devastated to lose her character. "And Halbarad is more important-"

"Don't say that!" Lucas scolded.”You’re important -”

“I’m sorry I didn’t do better-” Max was babbling, thinking of that night in the car, how Lucas had helped her make Estel, how much she had loved playing her. “I’m sorry I didn’t -”

“Don’t -” Lucas said roughly, but then a loud sob interrupted him, and Max looked up, suddenly reminded that there were other people in the room.

El was bent double, forehead against the table, shoulders shaking as she cried. Will had a hand on her shoulder, but even his eyes were shiny and wet. Dustin’s bottom lip was trembling - it was all she could see of his face now that he was looking up at the ceiling, hood pulled forward so that his eyes were hidden. And Mike -

“Are you crying Wheeler?” Max demanded, ignoring the fact that her voice broke as she asked.

“No!” was the reply, instant and harsh even by Mike Wheeler standards. It was hard to prove her suspicion correct though, because he’d hunched forward so that his face was covered by his screen.

It took them almost ten minutes to calm down enough to finish killing off Estel, and then another hour still to give her a proper warrior burial. Max missed most of it, sitting out on the back stoop of the Wheelers smoking a cigarette to calm the shaking in her hands. Estel was just a character, but given the sympathetic reaction from the rest of the party, she didn’t think that she had to explain the very genuine sorrow she felt to see her killed off. 

It was even deeper than that - Estel had felt like a gift from Lucas, and seeing her killed had felt like she’d lost part of her connection to him.

El came out to get her once everything was settled. Max passed over what was left of the cigarette - only a couple puffs until the filter, but El took it all the same. 

“Be careful, your boyfriend won’t want to kiss you goodnight,” Max said dully. It was well known that Mike abhorred the smell of cigarettes, even if El indulged once in awhile.

Her eyes flicked up to the windows above their heads. Mike’s bedroom window was dark. “Drank too much. Probably won’t wake up when I get up there.”

“Lightweight,” Max snorted, and grinned at the crooked smile El offered in response.

She sighed and stretched her legs out. “Dustin won the couch. Lucas laid out your sleeping bag but didn’t get in. Said you might need space.”

Lucas knew her too well. In normal circumstances she would want space. Learning how to accept his support - or worse, ask for it - had been a steep curve. Tonight, however, it wasn’t going to be hard. She wanted him close to her, wanted to know that something wasn’t broken even though there was a crying, nagging part of her heart that kept insisting.

She stood up, carefully taking the stub of their cigarette and pocketing it so it couldn’t be found by Karen - or worse, Holly. Fifteen minutes later she was dozing off in her sleeping bag, Lucas curled protectively around her. 

It would be months before she - and the rest of the party - would learn that Dustin had taken what was left of the bottle and thrown it into the quarry. As far as she knew, none of them ever touched blueberry schnapps again. 

***

Mike was talking, but he sounded far away, like Max had her head underwater. 

Or maybe Max was just distracted by El next to her.

It was six in the morning, and they had transcended the state of being known as tiredness - they, as a party, had moved into that realm of hazy punch drunk where none of them could speak or understand English and as a result absolutely everything was _hilarious_.

She bit her lip, looked up at Mike, cleaning up the mess from their final battle. Monsters had been vanquished, jewels had been saved, and royal lineages had been preserved. 

Much more importantly, her zoomer had survived the battle mostly intact.

(“You’re a _rogue_ ,” Mike had insisted when she’d made her introduction.

“Zoomer,” El had corrected automatically, and the look of betrayal on Mike’s face had made Max’s night.)

More than a couple NPCs had predicted the demise of good old Zelda, but she was also fast, and clever, and had escaped quite a few carefully laid traps over the course of the campaign.

(Mike had continued to refer to her as the party’s rogue right up until the final battle, even though he knew. _Zoomer_. They all knew.)

She had melted into shadows, she had picked locks, she had slit throats, she had been a single-woman scouting party.

(The final battle had begun with, “Your zoomer evades detection, dodging from sight and signalling to the party that the enemy is armed.” She had never felt more validated in her life, and while part of her hated that it had come from Mike Wheeler of all people, she had been able to see on both Lucas and Will’s faces that they, too, had noticed Mike’s slip.)

Now, she was watching as El’s hand reached under the table and tapped her on the knee. When she glanced up and made eye contact, El stuck her tongue out and touched her nose with it, eyes crossing in the process.

Max dissolved into giggles. They had discovered this particular talent earlier in the evening, and the later the hour the funnier it had become.

“Excuse me!” Dustin slapped his hands on the table, making Mike’s screen and the figurines all jump. “You’re interrupting the medal ceremony!”

For some reason, this only made El and Max laugh harder.

"Guys." Even Lucas was starting to look a little put out - which made it even harder to quiet down. Max couldn’t stop snorting, which just triggered more choking giggles from El.

El reached out and squeezed her hand. They both had to look down at their laps in order to quiet their laughing. Max bit her lip, tried to focus on what Mike was saying despite the fact that she had, quite frankly, lost interest in the story itself.

"With the return of these jewels, my succession to the throne is guaranteed!" Mike crooned in a warbling, high pitched voice.

"Now kiss." Max mumbled, and she and El again descended into laughter.

"Come on!" Dustin protested, but the effect was lost when Will leaned over his elbow, looked at his character sheet, and said seriously, "You'll need to roll at least an 8 on charisma..."

El and Max lost it completely, and this time both Lucas and Will joined in. El leaned over, bracing her forehead on Max's shoulder, still holding her hand. Max's stomach was nearly cramping, and she could feel the tears gathering in her eyes.

Mike shrugged, and began to pack everything up. 

( _See ya next campaign, Zelda._ )

He didn't look mad - in fact, Max would have dared to say that the way he was looking at her and El was affectionate. It wasn't hard to make El smile or laugh, but to see her so unrestrained was rare, and heartwarming. The fact that she had been the one to make El laugh in the first place gave Max a jolt of manic confidence that she didn't always feel in these sessions.

Dustin was the only one who was still frowning. His bard had been the hero of the day, and maybe it was unfair of her and El to disrupt his very much deserved accolades - but then she looked up, wiping tears from her face, made eye contact with El, and they were off again.

The boys let them be while they cleaned up. Despite the fact that sunlight was filtering into the basement, they dutifully laid a blanket across the couch and unrolled Max's sleeping bag. There was just time enough to nap for an hour or so before they all went back to their respective houses and crashed.

Then, just as Mike was about to head upstairs, Lucas said quietly, "I'm hungry."

Max sat up. "Me too."

"Is there any pizza left?" Dustin asked hopefully.

"Nope," Max said.

"Damn."

"I don't want pizza," Lucas said. He sat up next to Max, looking at the assembled party. Mike was standing on the bottom step, looking intrigued. "I want breakfast."

El abruptly sat up straight from the couch. "Breakfast?"

"And coffee," Will said with abject longing in his voice.

They lapsed into silence, all of them looking at one another, silently questioning - _do we really want to do this?_ \- and each answering in the affirmative. _Yes. Yes we do_.

Then the six of them were scrambling, looking for jackets and shoes without waking anyone else in the house up.

"Shit, crap, I left my shoes upstairs, shit -" Dustin was throwing around pillows.

"Is Holly up yet? We can get them." Will looked up apprehensively.

"El, float them down here."

"I told you no more making her do tricks Dustin!"

El's reply was muffled, from the back of the blanket fort. "I need my bra."

Max bent over to watch El, hair falling into her face. "Just throw a hoodie on, no one can tell."

"Will, you go get my shoes, you're the quietest."

"Yeah but Lucas is the fastest."

" _Max_ is the fastest."

"Yeah," she turned and squinted at Will. "Zoomer, remember?"

"Mike," El called, still in the depths of the blanket fort. "Where's your sweater?"

He was ten steps ahead of her, closing the dryer door and shaking out a sweatshirt. "I need this one back though, you still have that blue one in your locker."

El took it from him, head shaking. "Left it in the station wagon."

"Oh.” Mike looked pleased. "Then I can just-"

He froze. "Shit."

Everyone fell silent, looked at him.

"How are we going to get there?" he asked. "I can't take the car. My dad or Holly will hear."

Lucas' shoulders slumped. "You're right. They’ll hear my car too."

For a minute they were quiet, mulling their options. Then Will said quietly, “Bike?”

“Bike!” Dustin clapped his hands, and then the scramble was on again. Shoes were retrieved, jackets were thrown on, and then they were out in the cool morning air. It was late April, and the weak morning sun was blinding to their exhausted eyes. 

Max had her skateboard, but it didn’t feel right. She took a moment, watched while Dustin and Will and Lucas mounted their bikes, saw the way El climbed on behind Mike, that stupid smile twitching at his cheeks while she wrapped her arms around his waist, and when she tore her eyes away - 

Lucas was watching her intently.

They were sixteen. Both Mike and Lucas had their drivers licenses, and Lucas had his own car. They still biked around town, but she always had her board and couldn’t remember the last time she had ridden behind him. 

She shouldn’t have been surprised at how easy it was for him to read her mind. Her face must have been bright red, because she could practically feel the heat radiating from her smile, but she swung a leg over, and fit her arms snugly around him.

They were shushing each other as they pedalled out of the neighborhood, though halfway through El started giggling again and then Max started laughing too - and then they were three blocks over, and safe from the suspicious eyes of their parents and any spying neighbors picking up the morning paper, and then Will was laughing too, and Dustin and Mike were both hollering something, at each other, at all of them, and Max could feel the pulse of his abdomen as Lucas joined in.

Dustin led the pack to the diner, Will and Lucas with Max in the middle, with Mike and El bringing up the rear, and Max rested her ear between Lucas’ shoulder blades, listening to his heart and the hollow whoosh of his lungs as he shouted at his ( _their_ ) friends.

She looked over, made eye contact with Will, who crossed his eyes at her, bike jerking to the side as he took his eyes off the road. He overcorrected, stopped himself from wiping out, and that was the newest most hilarious thing Max had ever seen. By the time they reached the diner her laughter was bordering on hysterical.

They weren't the only ones in the diner, but they were by far the youngest. There were a couple old men - clearly the regulars - sitting at the counter, and an elderly couple having breakfast at a table by one of the windows. The looks on their faces were apprehensive, although the waitress that came over to take drink orders just looked bored.

The six of them were crammed into a booth in the back corner - probably so they didn't bother the regulars - with her and El pushed up against the wall. It was a tight squeeze. Max was practically sitting in Lucas' lap, and she had no problems with hooking her ankle around his and leaning into him, burying her nose in his shoulder and breathing him in.

It wasn't like he smelled good - they'd been up all night, hadn't brushed their teeth, and he had been sweating while he biked - but he smelled familiar and safe mingled with the fried oil and stale coffee smell of the diner.

El had turned so her back was against the wall, her legs stretched across Mike's lap and into Dustin's. Mike didn't appear to have even noticed how naturally they fell into the position, resting his hands on her thighs like they'd always been there.

"I _need_ coffee," Will muttered, fingers wringing a sugar packet into dust. "Coffee. Coffee. Coffee."

Dustin picked up the chant too. "Coffee. Coffee. Coffee!"

Lucas and Mike had both joined in by the time the waitress came back with the full coffee pot. She dutifully ignored them as they applauded the caffeine, and then quirked an eyebrow and asked, "Are you going to order food, or are you just here for the -" and here she did a dead on impersonation of their zombified chant, "Coff-ee?"

It was somehow the funniest thing they’d ever heard. They were able to order food through their laughter - a platter that Mike, El, and Will would split, with the pancakes going to El, the toast and eggs going to Will, and Mike eating the bacon and fruit. Lucas and Dustin bickered about sharing home fries, before finally settling on splitting an omelet and toast with Max.

"I can't believe you like hash browns better," Dustin muttered after their waitress had collected the menus and left. "Clearly home fries are the superior potato."

"I like them both," Lucas said firmly, hands held out in front of him to emphasize his reasoning. "But I have to be in the mood for home fries because they're all oily and oniony. I _always_ want hash browns. They go with _anything_."

"You are so full of it!" Dustin shouted.

"Oh like I'm going to trust the opinion of someone who thinks Spiderman is going to beat Wolverine?"

The table exploded. Why Lucas had chosen to bring up this particular debate, Max would never know - it never resulted in anything less than a screaming match. Mike - the only other one present who had sided with Spiderman - immediately started shouting, him and Dustin a harmonized cacophony of teenage outrage.

Max made eye contact with El and rolled her eyes. _Boys_. El smiled, and stuck her tongue out to touch her nose again, looking satisfied as Max burst out into giggles yet again.

She looked down at her friends - at El, with her tongue out, Mike, emphasizing his point with his index finger pressed against the table, Will, ignoring them in favor of hunching over his coffee like it was going to give him life, Dustin, simultaneously nodding and interrupting Mike as they made the same argument, and Lucas -

\- Wonderful, reliable, nerdy Lucas, with his thigh pressed against hers - 

\- and thought, _I would climb into Hell for these assholes_.

Then she clapped her hands loudly, and shouted over all of them, "Do you mind? You're shouting like little kids and we're in _public_!"

"You love it Mad Max,” Dustin declared with a smug smile.

"Fuck you Henderson,” Max snapped back, refusing to agree with either Dustin or her own heart, who were both singing _yes, yes, yes_.

_Okay_. She amended. _I would climb into Hell_ again _for these assholes._


End file.
